Solar Bears: She Was Coloured In

How do you begin describing something that sounds so cozily familiar yet like nothing you’ve ever heard before? The music of Ireland’s Solar Bears inhabits a world that isn’t so much tinted by nostalgia as by a separate sense of otherworldly antiquity: sometimes sounding like something out of an alternate universe late-sixties existence and other times like an ancient time capsule left behind by extraterrestrial beings. On their debut LP She Was more

DJ Nate Da Trak Genious

This is the union of two talents. It’s possible they don’t know each other in person, and they certainly don’t share surrounding, status, friends, or least of all cultural interests. They’re opposite poles of the same spectrum of dance music. But their paths have finally crossed, so that something very big can come about, one of the greatest albums of this year without discussion. On one side we have Mike Paradinas, Planet Mu head honcho, a more

DJ Rashad – Teknitianz

Teknitianz beats down the door to our disco with a 93 Jungle bassline in accapella, but as the dust settles and we expect execution by snare rush, we instead float away on the wings of varicolor sprites left over from the commodore 64 film tie-in franchise game of Hitchcock’s Birds. A little bit more straight ahead than some of the younger abstractions of DJ Nate or DJ Elmoe, but still ramping the syncopation into a +6 cerebral setting, pushing more

Tropics – Soft Vision EP

As the year goes on it seems Planet Mu are intent on spoiling us with yet more fresh talent, and the Soft Vision EP makes it easy to hear why Tropics are the next one up. Fans of Optimum, Starkey, Kuedo, Falty DL and Ikonika take notice, this one’s for you. Tropics (aka Chris Ward) brings us a dreamy, summery sound perfectly timed to carry us out of the summer days.